In "IBM Study: CIOs Have a New Boss - The Customer," Tricia Morris, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Parature, from Microsoft cites that "top CIOs are moving from a focus on the back-office to the front-lines as customer engagement and customer experience become key to winning business strategies."

Where are you focused? Join Michael Lenz, Global Director of Brand Experience, Cisco, as he presents "Beyond Products, Managing Experience for Tomorrow's Business Now" during the Total CX Leaders Conference June 3-4 in Miami, Fla.

In this session, Michael will share:

His insights on how Cisco's brands are the experience frontline

His experience changing a $140 billion company from the inside, including the program that helped his team win the CXPA 2014 Innovation Award

Total CX Leaders Conference will help you "learn how to listen to your customers, understand their differences and set the foundation to build a road map to create a seamless experience for modern customers."Join Michael at Total CX Leaders Conference (TCXL) 2015 in Miami. Register today!Stay connected with TCXL15:

Monday, April 6, 2015

"The customer experience is the next competitive battleground." - Jerry Gregoire, former CIO of DellThe quest for quality customer service and winning customers' loyalty continues to be a major battle for many companies. In "Experiencing the Next Competitive Battleground" by Jena McGregor, Tom Knighton, Executive Vice President, Forum Corp., "expands on what's driving the increasing importance of the customer experience -- and how incremental improvements might not always lead to success."Want to learn what it takes to win the customer experience battle? Join Brian Byrne, President, Aviador and Associates, as he presents "Classic Patterns of Competitive War Gaming" during the Total CX Leaders Conference June 3-4 in Miami, Fla.In this session, Brian will:

Describe the classic patterns of competition

Share case studies across a range of sectors such as Mobility, Food & Beverage and Personal Care

Describe how scenario planning and white space mapping are applied as tools of competitive warfare to identify and conquer key profit pools

Total CX Leaders Conference will help you "learn how to listen to your customers, understand their differences and set the foundation to build a road map to create a seamless experience for modern customers."Join Brian at Total CX Leaders Conference (TCXL) 2015 in Miami. Register today!Stay connected with TCXL15:

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Retailers today are striving to make sure that their
companies provide a millennial-friendly customer experience. As a millennial
myself, I have been fortunate enough to have grown up in a more advanced
technological world where I, like many others in a similar age bracket, will
have been more tech savvy than their parents by their early teens. Customer
experience for millennials has been molded by the increasing number of
platforms available for retail and this creates opportunities and challenges
for retailers.

Monitoring online social experiences are seen as a must for
retail companies; consumers are often flocking to the web to look for answers
to issues as well as contacting a call center or an online chat for
information. The web has a huge number of forums and communities where
consumers go to discuss products and are in my eyes a great resource for
gaining first hand insights into exactly what customers want or think about
products. Often, companies only monitor comments from customers on their own
sites and may miss people’s comments from sites such as TripAdvisor or other
discussion rooms.

Social media sites such as twitter are now becoming a
popular resource for companies to talk to customers. According to Forbes,
millennials take up 29 percent of the twitter-sphere and use the platform for
commenting on purchases; leveraging the resource to monitor posts and often
responding via twitter can give the customer a sense of being personally looked
after rather than having to wait on hold whilst a customer representative at a
call center keeps you on hold for three hours.

Giving the customer a more personalized feel is deemed
another priority in giving a better customer experience. Repeating personal
information that could have been retained by companies I find very irritating.
Fundamental information such as contact information and home addresses I expect
to be able to be seen across different platforms and having to re-input
information could put customers off returning. Being able to access personal
information and interests is key to giving a customer a comfortable and easy
experience. Online retailers such as Amazon and ASOS retain previous purchase
information or what has been searched for in order to give suggestions. I
believe the next step would be to take that technique in store.

The world is becoming far more interconnected; so I believe
creating systems that register a smartphone when a person has entered a store
can bring up information of again past purchases so that a shop assistant would
be able to give the customer a more personal experience.

Catering to the desires of the millennial generation could
be a great opportunity to boost customer satisfaction. Other strategies could
be being more engaged in price comparison or giving more of a story behind a
product rather than just it being made for profit. TOMS shoes is a prime
example, it helps the consumer appreciate the company for doing something to
help rather than just making money. Millennials have grown up in a world where
global issues such as poverty and climate change are often at the forefront of
discussions; so creating a retail platform that goes beyond wanting to make an
easy buck, for me and I’m sure many others, would be the difference in choosing
between two retailers.

About the Author:
Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the
industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent
graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as
a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World
Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.